SPOILER -- CAN'T DEFEND MASSA ANYMORE

Ron, whats up with you constantly getting PO'ed and insulting the people who don't see things your way? You *always* drag out the "monday morning QB's who aren't real enthusiasts and don't know anything about F1". It's like clockwork... Massa does something wrong, and you *always* respond with the *exact* same comment every time.

Were you in the car with Massa? Were you on the pit wall? No, of course... so how are you any different than anyone else on the forum? We're all just giving our opinions and yours aren't more insightful and enlightened than anyone elses. Sure, a lot of people are just venting and pouting and exaggerating the extend of Massas situation today, but why not just call it that instead of saying they are armchair QB's who know nothing about F1? Because if you have to be in the car or part of the team to understand, then we should all just shut up and take the driver comments post-race as the absolute gospel (which IMO it isn't).

Just an observation.

 

Ron, I'm I reading this right!!!!
I will buy the drinks...

 

No, I was quoting one of the original posts. I absolutely do not believe this, I think Massa did the best he could today to podium with a secondary car.

 

.........Loser.

German GP: Winners and Losers
Sunday 20th July 2008 - From PlanetF1.com

STAR OF THE RACE

Lewis Hamilton, McLaren, 1st
Another peerless drive from Hamilton who was in a class of his own at Hockenheim. It's a dramatic turnround for McLaren to be outgunning Ferrari by half a second a lap, as it was in the opening stages of the German GP. In 18 laps Lewis had carved out an 11 seconds lead over Massa.

Though that worrying rush-of-blood-to-the-head looked to have descended on him as he approached Trulli after the first pit-stop on Lap 19, he reined it in. His passing moves on Massa and Piquet were clinical. But it's a good job for McLaren that their strategy hiccup came at a nice wide circuit.


OVERTAKING MOVE OF THE RACE

Lap 43: Heikki Kovalainen, McLaren on Robert Kubica, BMW
Having received criticism for his lack of aggression at Silverstone, Kovalainen made amends with a superb overtaking move in front of a grandstand load of Mercedes fans at Turn 8.

He was close to Kubica in the hairpin and trailed him all the way down to the turn, following him round on the outside and sneaking up the inside before the Pole could turn back into Turn 9.

Fifth place was a good result for Heikki and though Hamilton ultimately made the McLaren strategy work - had Lewis come in with the rest of the pack, the Finn would have had to queue up for fuel and tyres and would probably have had to settle for something like 6th or 7th.


WINNERS


Nelson Piquet Junior, Renault, 2ndNelson Piquet has acknowledged that he was lucky to take his maiden podium position in Germany. Not so. He may have been in the right place at the right time, but in the closing stages of the race came under no pressure at all from Felipe Massa thanks to a series of Personal Best sector and lap times. In fact, he was pulling away. Flavio would have to have a heart of stone to chuck him out now.
Stop Press: Briatore sacks Piquet Junior...


Felipe Massa, Ferrari, 3rd
Unlike the ITV commentary team, I can't see what Felipe Massa did so wrong in trying to get 2nd place back off Lewis Hamilton after he was passed on Lap 57. Kovalainen had made a pass stick in the same spot and he was only about a car length away from making it work.

Massa's still in the World Championship hunt and shouldn't be as gloomy as he looked in the press conference. Not when Raikkonen's failing to set his car up and coming home 6th.


Nick Heidfeld, BMW, 4th
A brave decision by Dr.Mario to leave Nick out during the Safety Car period and one that worked. Heidfeld made up an extraordinary number of places (he was P11 on the grid) despite picking "the wrong way to go". Like Kovalainen - had he been double-teamed in the SC induced pit-stops, he would have got nowhere in the race. Circumstances forced the team into a great decision.


Kimi Raikkonen, Ferrari, 6th
Raikkonen had a poor afternoon and only looked like he meant business the second the Safety Car disappeared. Then he carved his way through from a lowly 12th. He was also patient enough to wait for the opportunity to overtake Kubica for 6th place.

His cheery little wave to Sebastian Vettel as he overtook the Toro Rosso driver was a gem.


Sebsatian Vettel, Toro Rosso, 8th
A good race from Vettel and some combative dicing with Fernando Alonso. It's not Seb's fault that the lollypop guy for the Red Bull team previously worked at the Wimbledon Banger Racing stadium


LOSERS

Timo Glock, Toyota, DNF
He'd done an amazing job to get himself into the race, but it all fell apart - quite literally - when he bounced his Toyota over the run-off at the exit of the SudKurve.

Before the Safety Car, the GP was dissolving into a bit of a plod to the finish and he did everyone a favour. Up until that point the best overtaking move of the race was down to the official timing screens (see below)(Hamilton lapped everyone in a nanosecond).


Robert Kubica, BMW, 7th
Kubica didn't look like a World Champion in waiting at Hockenheim, he looked like a driver waiting to slip down the driver's table. The official BMW line has been that they aren't going for the title in 2008, but you tend to think that: "the lady doth protest too much". If they were still close approaching the last three or four races then they'd put the development of the 2009 car on hold. With Ferrari conspiring to get some poor results and still backing both drivers, and Lewis capable of being both Superman and Blunderman at alternate races, then there could still be a chance going into the autumn


Fernando Alonso, Renault, 11th
We saw a delicious glimpse of the old fury this afternoon. Fernando Alonso worked himself up into one of his "McLaren favour Lewis" or "Massa cannot drive straight" rages after Toro Rosso blatantly released Vettel into Fernando's path as Alonso was passing his garage during the round of Safety Car pit-stops.

Alonso was right to be angry, though.

It was yet another example of the madness of the stewards - failing to investigate the incident during the race, yet managing to fine Heikki Kovalainen 5000 euros for a non-standard fuel rig incident in Qualifying.


Webbo, Red Bull, DNF
Considering they've had some great results recently, it was a pretty poor German GP for Red Bull. David Coulthard lost a shedload of places off the start and never really recovered. Mark Webber smoked into retirement during the Safety Car period.

Webbo managed to give the quote of the weekend, though. When asked about his new 2009 team-mate Sebastian Vettel, Mark observed. "He's actually not a bad bloke for the nationality (smile + wink)".

In reply, an equally smiling Sebastian Vettel said, "He will definitely be difficult to understand - mate."


Honda Strategy
Ross Brawn might have helped pull off a strategy coup at Silverstone, but what was Jenson Button doing tucked behind Lewis Hamilton and not unlapping himself after the Safety Car allowed lapped cars through?


German Efficiency
They pride themselves on their efficiency, but the German marshals took an age to clear the track after the Glock shunt. At Monaco they are lightning, in Silverstone they're good, but in Germany you might expect them to act a bit quicker than some fat sweaty bloke in oil-stained Primark jeans with a rusty tow-truck.


German Race Attendance
Looking at the grandstands on race day it's not surprising that there is only one German race now. There were five German drivers in the race and parts of the Stadium still looked only half full.


Official Timing Computer
Who says the Germans don't have a sense of humour? The German GP timing screens acted like they'd been down to the bier keller before the race and consumed several steins. On Lap 14 they registered Heikki Kovalainen as STOPPED, even though he was carrying on with his race unabated. Then later in the GP as Lewis Hamilton flashed past the pits they decided he'd suddenly lapped everybody - and gave everybody else's time as +1 Lap. Then they registered Kovalainen as IN PIT even though he'd just had his stop and got fed up messing about and gave him the same sector times for the rest of the race. Even behind the Safety Car, Heikki was able to put in a first sector of 16.8 seconds.


Mark - git orf me barra, fraulein - Blundell
It's always good value when the ITV team start describing the wrong cars and don't realise their mistake for half a lap. You want it to go on forever. Today we got Timo Glock exiting the pits and joining battle with "Nelson Piquet and Sebastien Bourdais" - except it was Alonso and Vettel and James and Martin didn't realise.

Glock had been third before his pit-stop. Third is near the front.


Blundell, on the other hand, was on poor form and we only got, "Massa seems to be very fluid round here," along with his insistence that you need "a rivvum in the stadium complex, plus; "I fink it's down to wevver tomorrow, wevver it's raining tomorrow or wevver it's hot."


Nicht diamond, ja.


Andrew von Davies

 

Ok, sorry I was aghast, I tend to agree at least he was in contention, for a win.

 

As you say, we are all just giving our opinions, venting, which is what I did. No, I was not in the pits, but that's exactly the point I was making, I am not going to slam the drivers as did others because I was not in the pits or in the cars, no one knew the true situation to be able to assign responsibiity. That's why I do not knee jerk and come out and call for the head's of the players, I do not know all of the facts. I did not know the situation until after this race, and then we learn that is wasn't Raikkonen's or Massa's faults today. The negativity expressed is really nothing more than arm chair quaterbacking by those that do not understand the dynamics of motosports let alone F1. Unless you are in the car, or in the pits, privy to the radio communications, possibly you should just shut up and wait to hear the facts, or explanation if you will, before going on and on about something you know nothing about.

But then this is a forum, and anyone can post any opinion they wish, including this Monday morning quarterbacking. But do not expect everyone to agree with you.

As I specifically said, the comments made (not those that made them) were moronic. I stick by my comments, this is my opinion. The attitudes I see and read when the team does not win are really pathetic.

That is my observation.

 

I don't think the problem lies with Massa as much as it does with the (relatively speaking) piece of s**t car he is stuck with. M-M have made some serious improvements over the last few weeks and are putting a much faster car on the grid. Massa got the best out of the car, certinly a lot more than his world champion team mate could, but in the end there wasn't enough car left tohold off a superior entry from "the main rivals".

 

From the post race interview:

Q. (Marco Evangelisti – Corriere della Sera) Felipe, can you briefly explain what Ferrari has to do to recover the best shape it had in France?

FM: Work hard, as we always do. I think maybe in this race it was something related to us, because in the last stint, if you look, we were not even quicker than the Renaults and the BMWs, so I think it was maybe something related to us, which happens – especially in this race – which was not happening yesterday or maybe not like today, so it's something that we need to analyse and try to understand for the future.

 

Having said what I said before, I do thank McLaren and Lewis for making the race interesting by not refueling when they should of. Otherwise the race would have been a bit of a bore

 

Not to worry, that was my Viagra moment of the day for you.

 

Yeah but you still managed to get in a little slight against Hamilton didn't you? If that was Massa passing, you would be using this as proof of his overtaking abilities, and calling out people like Ted. Also, you can go on and on about other people's opinions, but I see all your predictions always turning out wrong. Consistently.

 

it's funny how you don't see that your posts are just as much 'armchair quarterbacking' as those you come out to slam... but yeah, 99.9% of us here don't know jack about motorsports, so thanks for reminding us, through every other post of yours, how big of idiots we all are.

 

It seems that every time Ferrari doesn't get a 1-2 finish, there are endless excuses as to why.

Ferrari WOULD have been 1-2 this race, were it not for the brakes

Ferrari WOULD have been 1-2 last race, were it not for the tires

Ferrari WOULD have been 1-2 the first race, were it not for the officiating

Etc, etc. I always used to laugh when I drag raced... you'd have a car that one guy, one time drove to a 12.00 flat (probably at sea level on a cool day with an awesome DA and a track soaked with VHT, etc, etc). Then everyone ever who ever ran anything above that time would always qualify their runs with excuses... "yeah I ran 12.3 but I missed a shift, and I spun bad off the line and hit the rev limiter in 2nd and I just left it in 3rd over the line and I let off a bit because the car was pulling". I'd start laughing and say "wow, so if all of those things didn't happen you would have run like a 6-second quarter - amazing!".

It's laughable how much bull people (the teams, drivers, fans) come up with to justify why they didn't win. It seems to me that the McLaren just has more pace, and that Lewis is simply a better driver than Kimi or Felipe. Both McLarens are the same car - the driver is the only difference. Heiki is lagging and Lewis is cleaning house in the same car.

I really don't think all the excuses as to why Ferrari underperformed amount to a hill of beans. After all, maybe the Red Bull really is the fastest car, but it just suffers from tire problem, brake problems, electronics problems, etc. Or perhaps the car and drivers just don't stack up?

IMO Lewis showed some amazing racecraft again today, just as he did 2 weeks ago. And again IMO Ferraris problems are not related to bad tires and bad brakes and bad whatever else. They have made multiple strategy mistakes, and right now the car simply does not seem to have the pace of the Mac. Earlier in the season the Ferrari had more pace, but it seems to have lost ground to McLaren. Also, Kimi and Massa are not driving (in the last few races) at a level on par with Lewis Hamilton.

The combination of all of that reflects the current standings.

 

Mike , you never told us you were a cross-dresser

so you DO like Max ?

btw what was your best reaction time ?

 

LOL even if I was into guys, I would have to be blind, drunk, desperate, seriously in need of $$, and feeling mighty charitable to even think of giving the time of day to that brown toothed uglasaurus!

As for drag racing, I've cut a few 500's for reaction time, but it was usually a result of luck (of course since nobody has a 0 reaction time ). My usual plan was a very shallow stage and I'd leave about 1/2 way through the last yellow. At the track, we used to race "test n' tune" (street cars) on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, and we could race in the street class on Sunday too. Sundays were the best, even though you got a lot less runs because the top fuela and funny cars were running... the upside though was the track was always prepped good, and if you got in towards the front of the line (because they used to rush the street car class through), you'd come to the line just after the last car of the previous class ran, and if that was the top fuelers or funny cars, the starting line was a nice sea of hot gooey molten rubber. In the Viper, I would rev to 3500rpm and just about dump the clutch. The only major downside was they were running a pro tree which I always found more difficult, although I did cut a few 400's on them, but again due to luck and if I was trying to time the lights I'd just as often red light. Usually on the pro tree I would stage pretty deep and try to launch about halfway through the yellows and usually be in the 400's or low 500's which was good enough to beat most of the guys in the street class. On the full tree I could usually be in the 500's, usually towards the lower end (sub 550) which I thought was pretty good. But the area I did well in wasn't launching but shifting. Most people don't know how to shift and semi-power shifting (a term we made up I think at our track) would give you a couple carlengths against the competition.

On our shifting, I always found with modern cars with beefy transmissions and synchros (like Corvettes and Vipers, which is mostly what I drag raced), if you tried to genuinely powershift, the driveline would be torqued up and you couldn't get the shifter out of gear and into the next gear. So we'd use the clutch but keep the foot to the floor on the gas and just bang the clutch as hard as you could, snap the gear and side-step the clutch to let it just pop back up. Just gotta do the shift quick, because if your RPM rose too much while you were doing the shift, you can jerk the power to the rear and kick the tires loose which is no fun on a 3-4 shift at ~110mph

Are you a drag racer? I know it's big down in Oz... I love drag racing up here. Only problem is you gotta drive a bit to find a track that's able to give you good #'s.

 

Massa's overtaking abilities??????????????????
I have news for everone here, HE DOES NOT HAVE ANY!!! He only wins if he is fast on a given weekend AND on pole (unless someone has problems, like Kimi in France).
Lets face it he gave up the inside line to Hamilton, and got passed. The people here are so Pissed of because it seemed like he barely even put up a fight. It was almost as if he was not even there.

 

I meant to add that little fact...Massa fought him harder than anyone he passed, and he did it with a clearly compromised car. Is it that hard to accept that maybe the McLaren was simply the better car on this day?

 

"Can't defend..."

The guy who is second in points?
The guy who finished on the podium this race?
The guy who had the best qualifying and finishing position in the Scuderia this weekend?
The guy who has the most wins this season for the Scuderia?


Doesn't seem like the gentleman needs your defense.

 

no, haven't done any official stuff in my life ... was a bad boy in my late teens doing the Brickies in Sydney (illegal drags) and some late Saturday night runs in Mt Isa in Qld (again illegal)

I love the workmanship some guys put into the drag cars and believe there are some very talented engineers amongst those guys that the F1 teams could learn from, .. nobody has the secret on the best practices, not even F1 guys.

Most racers look on drag racing as the lowest form of motorsport but if you look at the skill and technology behind the veneer you find it very high tech and nothing is left to chance or you suffer the consequences.

My reaction times were good, not as good as yours , but my take off technique was terrible (my mechanical sympathy made it hard to just dump the clutch), Vipers and Corvettes are weapons at this sort of thing , I would run 350 Chev 4 bolt main engines in a stock Aussie car that weighed about 1800kg with 400rwhp (supposedly but never saw more than ~350 from memory) 1100 Dominator but never got it to run right , got an 11.3 ONCE but I still reckon to this day my mate with the timing light fudged it to make me feel good

Drag racing is great fun but damned expensive if done right, I did it the cheap Charlie way and paid the penalty in lots of parts and lots of time rebuilding broken things

Anyway, long time ago and was terrible at it, lost heaps of money betting on the outcome (did I say some people were stupid betting on cars races ?? )

 

Don't ya just love these armchair F1 drivers? Most of us can't hold a candle to these guys, no matter what we think.

 

By the way. When you put spoiler in the title you shouldn't follow that up with something that would lead someone to know what happened in the race.

Massa did all right.

 

Some of us do things that these guys can't do either. That's not the point.

 

In my defense my comment was strictly sarcastic, I should have added some ... or perhaps a nifty smiley face

Truthfully I don't think either of the drivers did a bad job today and to have people calling for Massa's replacement (seriously we don't need a new thread after every race) after he gets passed on track by a car two seconds a lap faster than him is ridiculous.

 

Remember a few years ago when Fernando defended in his slower Renault against Michael's faster Ferrari for 19 laps and took the win...? I hated him that day but boy was I impressed by his driving and his amazingly wide car! That is what I hoped to see when Lewis caught up to Filipe, at least for a little while, but it didn't happen for even one circuit! Maybe the car was compromised in terms of brakes, but the line he took and the "step to the left" just before the turn was a conceding gift - quite a disappointing move, I thought. Lewis was on such a charge that if he was blocked for a little while, then maybe he would have made a mistake..... maybe.... but surely it was worth having a go at defending for a while, surely, rather than aquiescing so soon.